The real reason you’re stuck in bed (and it isn’t a lack of will-power)

Have you ever stayed in bed for hours even though you desperately want to get up and “be productive?”

You are not just choosing comfort. It's like you're stuck. Stuck in a cycle of guilt and scrolling and mental bargaining between the version of you who doesn't want to get up, and the version of you that wants to go fulfill all of their goals and ambitions in a twenty-four-hour period.

Your first instinct is to always label yourself as lazy, and I get why you think that. Because the bed is more comfortable, warm, and soft… and of course you would rather be there than getting up and taking effortful action toward the things that you want to get done.

But I've proven for myself that it is way deeper than that, and if you stick around till the end of this video, I'll prove it for you, too.

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The thing is, this isn't something you just started doing one day. The first time you really wanted to get out of bed but chose to sleep in or chose to take a nap or chose to just hang out there scrolling on your phone is not what kept you stuck for this long.

It's the pattern of failure. 

And when I say failure, I mean failing to do the things that you want to do and achieve those goals that matter so much to you. But most importantly, it's what that failure means about you, and the way you feel about that pattern of failures.

And so every unfinished task becomes another piece of evidence about your ability to get up… or not.

Every time you find yourself in the same place, laying in bed and wanting to get up but also wanting to keep scrolling, you're not just seeing a simple choice in front of you. 

You're seeing another opportunity to disappoint yourself.

And that feeling is really difficult to explain, especially to someone who has never dealt with this problem the way that you have. 

I won't lie to you: most people don't struggle with this. They lay in bed, and one of two things happens. They either realize they want to get something done, but make the internal decision that it does not matter as much to them, and that they don't care, and that they're going to stay in bed anyway. That's laziness. 

Or, they decide, “You know what, I'm going to actually go and do that thing.” Then they get up without a second thought.

It's not like that for you, is it? 

It feels heavy. It feels painful. It's an ache in your chest, like a kind of grief you don't know how to place.

And worst of all, it's like your brain is resisting something you want desperately. You want to be the person who gets up. You want to be the person who doesn't lay in bed and scroll away the day. 

But you are.

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I want you to know that this is something I have spent years studying. And not on a random whim. But because I used to be just like you, and I couldn't do it anymore. 

I couldn't face the disappointment and guilt every single day when I made the same choices over and over. 

But I couldn't just stop. I couldn't just push through it. I couldn't just “be more disciplined.” 

There was something deeper going on, and I needed to figure it out or I was going to go insane. And I did figure it out, and that's why I'm writing this post for you–so you can see that there is a way out that’s worth fighting for.

You are worth more than staying stuck in this prison of your own creation.

This exact pattern is what shows up across procrastination, perfectionism, chronic avoidance, and so many other types of self-sabotage. Whether it's related to eating patterns, exercise, working, spending time with others and choosing not to isolate, pursuing your dreams, from big to small… they all share the same thread. 

And all of the advice on the internet, specifically YouTube, tells you to just push through it, and if you know that there's a problem that all you need to do is make the mental decision to change. I'm here to tell you that that's wrong.

Because they're right about one thing: you know what's wrong and you see the gap between where you are and where you want to be. But you have no idea how to cross that gap.

What you're missing, and what all of that advice is missing, is the skills that allow you to make different choices.

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The reason you can't get up is because failure creates shame. Every failed attempt physically hurts. Not just because of whatever the task was, although that is important, but because of what that failure starts to mean about you, and the identity you adopt as a result of it.

And so shame changes the meaning of the next task, whether it's the same task or something different. It carries that previous disappointment, and you begin to anticipate that same emotional let down.

Avoidance becomes a form of protection, because if trying again might confirm your worst fear that you aren't capable of changing, then not trying feels emotionally safer. 

Staying in bed is more comfortable. It's more predictable. But it's not solving the problem—it's postponing another painful experience. Another painful realization about who you are.

And the reason it's a pattern is because that temporary relief reinforces the pattern. The minute you avoid and start distracting yourself, whether with scrolling, taking a nap, or something else, you start to feel a little bit better because you're not having to face the difficult decision to start or not. 

You take notice of that and learn, whether you mean to or not, that avoidance works.

One bad day becomes two. Two days become weeks. The shame grows faster than the unfinished work. Eventually you're fighting years of accumulated evidence against yourself. That's why you can only get up to do the laundry when you have nothing else left to wear. It's why you don't clean until someone's coming over in fifteen minutes. It's why you really want to change jobs but don't let yourself do the work needed to advance.

I want you to realize that the real obstacle here is not a lack of discipline or a lack of motivation. It's the accumulated shame making action feel psychologically dangerous because we act from an evolutionary brain, whose sole purpose is to protect us. 

And right now, avoidance is how you are protecting yourself

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So ask yourself: was there a moment recently that you chose to avoid? 

Have you been clinging on to it in the back of your mind, with shame and guilt for how you should have chosen differently?

Is hanging on to that the reason that you struggle to get started today? 

Is there a way that you can build evidence, instead of demanding confidence, that you can choose differently?

Could you ask yourself just to get out of bed, with no expectations for what comes next?

That becomes a new thread of evidence that you can use that proves every past failure wrong.

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And, by the way, if you're interested in learning more about the psychological reasons behind this type of thing, like how motivation works in the brain, you can join the newsletter HERE so you can see how it applies to your real life. I share new insights every single week.

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So if you've been wondering why you keep ending up back in bed, it's probably not because you don't care. If you’ve made it this far in the video, I can almost guarantee it isn’t. 

You care more than anyone else–and yet your progress is the most stunted. And that’s not right.

You keep sabotaging yourself because every failed attempt has quietly made the next attempt feel more emotionally expensive. It puts you at risk. And your mind feels as though you are in too much danger to keep persevere through that difficult choice of whether to act or not. 

If failure and shame are what keep you stuck, the next question becomes: why does it seem like everyone else can do these things so effortlessly while you're fighting yourself every step of the way?

That's exactly what we're talking about in the next video (to be released 7/28): why comparing your inner experience to everyone else's outer performance almost always convinces you you're the problem.

Don’t forget to subscribe if you’re ready to stop letting these patterns control you. And if you’ve heard enough and know that what you need is a path to follow that takes out the guesswork… then book a call using the link below.

And as always, stay in this corner of the internet as long as you need.